


Home for Thanksgiving

by DeckofDragons



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Thanksgiving, home for the holidays, spy dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21592840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: Scout brings Spy home for Thanksgiving.
Relationships: Scout & Spy (Team Fortress 2), Scout's Mother/Spy (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89





	Home for Thanksgiving

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! :)

Normally during the trip back to Boston, Scout was alone. Having Spy along was weird but ultimately not as bad as he’d thought it’d be since it _guaranteed_ him someone to chat with on the plane. Which was an immense blessing considering he often ended up sitting next to crotchety old people. Sometimes that description fit Spy too but not this time; like Scout, he was a nervous chatter so he was actually almost talkative for once.

Scout was nervous too. He still wasn’t sure if this whole thing was a good idea. Or if he even wanted things to go in a direction that would be considered well. He couldn’t even begin to guess what would happen. But those were all things to worry about when they reached home and that was _hours_ away.

Except ‘hours’ wasn’t a long time and thus they were pulling into the driveway of Scout’s childhood home in a rented car in what felt like no time. Other than his Mom’s car, theirs was the only one here; he was the first of his brothers showing up for Thanksgiving. He almost always was but he’d left early this year to make sure of it because of the company he was bringing with him. So they had that going for them at least.

“You sure about this?” Spy asked as he turned off the engine.

Nope, Scout was _not_ sure of this at _all_. But… “Yeah, totally,” he said with a scoff as if it were no big deal. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. And besides, it’s too late to turn back now.”

“… True.”

“So, let’s go.” And get the surprise reunion out of the way as fast as possible before they burst with nervousness over it.

“Wait,” Spy said as Scout reached for the door handle. “Before we go in… uh…”

Scout relaxed back into his seat, resigned to wait however long it would take for Spy to say whatever he felt he needed to say. It had to be important if he was hesitant to say it.

“Well… in the past when, I visited with your mother often, I made a point to not wear a mask or disguise while doing so. So, I figure I should probably do that now. And it’s probably about time you see my face anyway.”

Before Scout could even start to formulate a reply, Spy reached his hands up and removed his mask in one fluid motion. Thus, “Oh,” was all he ended up being able to say as he stared at Spy’s face several seconds.

“Let’s go inside now and get his over with,” Spy finally said after fixing his hair with a little comb. He turned away and exited the car, basically forcing Scout to follow suit.

Shaking off his shock, Scout followed him up the driveway towards his childhood home. It was still dirty off white and a bit run down looking, the handrailing leading up to the door was a bit rusted and broken from Scout and all his brothers climbing all over it as kids and teens, making it not the safest thing to grasp onto. There was new welcome mat in front of the door that hadn’t been there last year, reading “WELCOME!” in big bold letters.

Not letting himself hesitate, Scout pressed the doorbell. The muted sound of it inside set off a dog barking; Cody the wiener dog mutt. His barking rapidly grew closer until it was right on the other side of the door.

“Come on in Jeremy, door’s unlocked,” came a muffled call from inside. Scout had called home before leaving the base to let her know he was on his way so of course she knew it was him. And she was about to find out it was Spy too.

“You nervous?” Scout asked, glancing at Spy. He was certainly nervous.

“Of course not,” Spy said with an offended scowl as he ‘fixed’ – more like messed up and _then_ fixed – the collar of his suit. Something he only did when he _was_ nervous.

Scout shrugged before opening the door. “Hi Cody,” he said, unable to _not_ use a baby talk tone even with his nervousness about this whole thing. “Aren’t you just the best doggy in the whole world?” He stepped in and bent down to pick the dog up, finally shushing him, and earning a lick on the face for the trouble. “This is Spy,” he said in a whisper, turning the dog to face Spy. “He’s kind of an asshole but he’s also my dad so you have to be mostly nice to him. And Dad, this is Cody. He was _going_ to be my dog but then… you know, I landed a job as a mercenary and all that. I wasn’t allowed to take him with me so he’s Mom’s dog instead.”

Spy rolled his eyes as he softly closed the door behind them because he liked to pretend he didn’t like cute animals even though Scout had caught him loving the cats and their kittens that lived around base on multiple occasions. It was dumb but also just like him. But there was no way his pretend badass act would survive for much longer.

Scout pulled Cody back towards himself as he scanned the empty living room – much cleaner now than when he’d been growing due to the lack of himself and all his brothers being around to mess it up. “There are a couple cats around here too but they don’t seem to be around so I guess you’ll have to meet them later. For now, though, let’s…”

“What the hell is he doing here?”

Scout snapped back around to see his mother had poked her head into the living room, probably to greet him but her gazed had naturally locked onto Spy instead. “Hey Ma,” he said, putting on a forced grin. “You remember how I called you a couple months ago to tell that by some weird impossible coincidence I ended up working alongside my long-lost father but I didn’t know for the longest time until uh… some _stuff_ happened? Well uh… I decided to bring him home for thanksgiving this year because why the hell not?”

She sighed and frowned at him in that way she did when she wasn’t mad, just disappointed with him… which was often. “Jeremey, could you please take Cody out on a walk for me? He really needs one and I haven’t had a chance to take him on one today yet.”

“But… uh… actually sure thing.” Scout would be more than glad to get out of here. “I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on and… stuff.” Thankfully the leash was in the closet by the door. He put a now very excited Cody down on the ground to attach it to his collar before opening the front door again. “I’ll probably be back in like an hour so… see you guys then. Love you, bye.” He flashed them the peace sign as he ducked out of the house, pulling the door shut behind him.

***

Spy _almost_ wanted to protest Scout leaving but… he _didn’t_ need his son to offer moral support, why would he even _want_ that? So he held back a grimace as the door closed. “Hey Ellen, it’s been while, how are things?” he said as he turned back to face the woman he was still in love with despite all the mistakes he’d made.

She’d crossed her arms as she stared down at him somehow even though she was shorter than him. “What did you do to make him forgive you?” She didn’t sound as mad as he’d predicted she would so that was good… right? “I asked him over the phone but he wouldn’t say.”

Spy wasn’t sure of that answer to that himself and he didn’t have the guts to ask it. “Well, he was in trouble, the dangerous kind of trouble. I saved him from it and may have gotten injured doing so.” _Huge_ understatements but she didn’t need to know just how bad it had _really_ been. “During those events, the rumors he’d heard about me were confirmed. So afterwards we talked and… now we’re where we are.” That had been more than a year ago now, a lot had happened since though none of it had really explained why Scout didn’t hate him.

Ellen sighed and shook her head. “Well… thank you for taking care of him, it only _took_ you twenty something years.”

“Uh… yes. I should’ve tried harder to stay back then.” He’d had a lot of job stuff going on back then that made it dangerous and difficult for him to stay. But he could’ve tried harder and made it work – he also could’ve quit his job as an assassin entirely but that hadn’t felt like an option. She knew that, she’d _told_ him that, _asked_ him to. But he’d also been terrified of the idea of being a dad – still was – so he’d run. “I apologize.”

“Well at least you finally have the guts to say that in person to my face. I assume you apologized to Jeremy too, right?”

“Of course, multiple times. Look, I know I can’t ever make it up to you but I have brought you a gift in hopes of making you at least a bit more amicable towards me.” Spy reached into his jacket pocket to pull it out with a flourish and offer it to her. It was a single blue rose; Ellen’s favourite kind of rose and only one because it wasn’t necessarily meant to signify romance the way a full bouquet would.

She stared at it for a few seconds before reaching out a hand to accept it. She lifted it up to hold under nose and took a deep breath, smiling slightly. “Thank you.”

“I am pleased you like it.” More like ‘accepted it’ because she might not have.

“Hmm… don’t get your hopes up. I don’t know how to feel about you yet, I’ll have to think about it. But you _are_ welcome to stay for Thanksgiving because Jeremy clearly wants you here as long as you promise to help me cook for it.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dare intrude on your family gathering without offering assistance with the food preparation.” Cooking was one of the many things he was good at even if he didn’t demonstrate it all that often these days – most of the food at base was canned, making it not worth the effort of trying to do anything fancy with it. So he was looking forward to that aspect of this.

The next hour or so was a bit awkward, they hadn’t talked in a long time and she was naturally still a bit stiff with him. But he’d managed to get a basic run down of what she’d been up to lately anyway and he shared what little he could of his own activities. Thankfully Scout returned with the dog before things got too uncomfortable. His immediately slid into conversation with them as if nothing was strange about his parents being in the same room with him for the first time since he was a toddler too young to even speak properly.

After a supper that was only saved from being awkward by Scout’s continued chatter – how much he could talk about everything and nothing was sometimes a blessing, though Spy would never dare tell him that – they left for their booked hotel. Staying in her house the whole time they were here seemed wrong and Scout had grown to prefer a room of his own so given the option of Spy renting him a hotel room as well, he’d taken it.

He finally stopped talking once they were in the car. Apparently even he grew tired of talking eventually too. His silence lasted for a while too, long enough that Spy was almost tempted to ask if he was okay. But he did eventually break it when they reached the hotel, he invited himself into Spy’s room.

“So how’d it go?” he asked with no other preamble as he leaned back against the door. “When I left did you guys like make up or something? You didn’t seem to be fighting or anything when I was there so… does that mean anything?”

Spy sat in the one chair the hotel provided. He wanted a cigarette but he was trying to quit. “She said she needs time to think about it.”

“Uh… that’s good then… I think.” He didn’t sound sure of that.

“Do you… _want_ us to get back together?” That was the only conclusion Spy could draw here but… he couldn’t see why Scout would want that.

“Well uh…” Scout looked away, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t know actually. But what I want doesn’t matter. You guys broke up because of me so I figured I should help give you guys a chance to repair what my existence broke.”

“It wasn’t your fault we…”

“No,” Scout interrupted. “You wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t been born. Maybe you would’ve eventually broken up some other way without me but… that’s not what happened. So, the fact of the matter is, if I hadn’t been born you guys wouldn’t’ve broken up the way you did.”

Spy couldn’t exactly argue with that.

“So…” Scout continued, finally turning his head to look at Spy again. “Don’t worry about me or what I want just… worry about you and Mom. It’s why I brought you out here, to apologize to her and because I just want both of you to be happy in whatever kind of relationship or non-relationship you guys end up being in.”

“Well uh… thank you for this opportunity.” Spy certainly wouldn’t have tried this again without Scout insisting on this. “I appreciate it.” Even if Ellen didn’t want to get back together or even be friends, Spy was happy for the chance to try again. They’d already made peace with each other, that was more than he’d been expecting to get and would be enough for him if he had to settle for it.

“You’re… welcome.” Scout paused and looked away again for a few seconds. “Anyway uh… when my bros start coming in I’ll have to introduce you to them and their partners. There are even a few _kids_ now with a another on the way. I’m an uncle!”

Glad the emotional conversation was over, Spy relaxed back into his chair. “I _dread_ to think what kind of uncle you’ll end up being.”

Scout let out a fake offended gasp. “How dare? I’m the best uncle. … Okay maybe not the _best_ uncle but I am definitely the coolest uncle. Though… because one was just born this year and the other three were adopted like… right after I left Boston after New Year’s I haven’t really _met_ any of them yet so… I don’t know how much they’ll like me. What if they _don’t_? What if they end up _hating_ me?”

“I’m sure they’ll like you just fine.” Spy would’ve normally given a less honest and emotionally reassuring response but… he didn’t feel like it for some reason.

“Oh uh… hopefully.” Even Scout was surprised by that. “Anyway uh… it’s late I should probably get off to bed now. See you tomorrow, good night!”

“Good night,” Spy replied as Scout left, pulling the door shut behind him.

Spy didn’t particularly feel like sleep but he needed to be well rested if he wanted to make anything of this opportunity Scout had given him. Hopefully things would go well but if not, he at least gave it one more try.


End file.
